atari on ios?

[AHA]

hello fellows, im a life long atari fan and user of the 8-bits, last week picked up an ipad mini (version 1) as i do with every machine i ever owned, i thought id put atari power into it..... ie an emulator so i can play "proper" games.... blimey after rooting, and finding how to use the thing, i discovered there are no atari 800 emus out there.... wish i had the skills to compile my own but alas... so the workaround i found is to install a dos box type thing and then run the original pc dos version of atari 800 (xformer), crazy but not the first time i emulate from whithin another emulator.... i found emulators for just about every other system... and they do a good job, but it seems strange that nobody has written an ios version of our favourite machine.....so i guess im asking if anyone has any info on why there is a lack of atari on ios? also since rooting or jailbreaking ive discovered what powerfull little machines these are, such a shame that apple cripples em before allowing joe public to get his hands on em - ie blocking access to all but pictures... not allowing install of anything but applestore crap... its good that rooting gives the machine back to its owner (as it should be) anyway its been a phun week sofar and i have the machine exactly as i want it now.... apart from proper retro playability ie an atari emulator thats a little more up to date than pc xformer... also i found a 2600 emu, its installed and working with all the games... but its not the same....

[gozar]

hello fellows, im a life long atari fan and user of the 8-bits, last week picked up an ipad mini (version 1) as i do with every machine i ever owned, i thought id put atari power into it..... ie an emulator so i can play "proper" games.... blimey after rooting, and finding how to use the thing, i discovered there are no atari 800 emus out there.... wish i had the skills to compile my own but alas... so the workaround i found is to install a dos box type thing and then run the original pc dos version of atari 800 (xformer), crazy but not the first time i emulate from whithin another emulator.... i found emulators for just about every other system... and they do a good job, but it seems strange that nobody has written an ios version of our favourite machine.....so i guess im asking if anyone has any info on why there is a lack of atari on ios? also since rooting or jailbreaking ive discovered what powerfull little machines these are, such a shame that apple cripples em before allowing joe public to get his hands on em - ie blocking access to all but pictures... not allowing install of anything but applestore crap... its good that rooting gives the machine back to its owner (as it should be) anyway its been a phun week sofar and i have the machine exactly as i want it now.... apart from proper retro playability ie an atari emulator thats a little more up to date than pc xformer... also i found a 2600 emu, its installed and working with all the games... but its not the same....

 

I haven't tried it, but maybe Retroarch's atari800 core would work?

[FifthPlayer]

Pretty sure that Apple disallows emulators of any sort on the iOS platform.

[+DrVenkman]

Pretty sure that Apple disallows emulators of any sort on the iOS platform.

 

Not quite. They approve certain ones just fine (the Atari Arcade collection, for instance, Activision one, the NAMCO ones that used to be available, the Lost Treasures of Infocom ...). Atari Arcade is still available, the others have never been updated to 64-bit so they don't work on current versions of iOS.

[Mr Robot]

If you want the lost treasures of infocom, frotz is available on iOS.

 

Nothing that executes external code is allowed so emulators that can add their own images are not allowed on the app store. Emulators with a fixed set of games are allowed but that brings with it licensing as the fixed set has to be a part of the approval and that also requires proof of licensing.

 

There is nothing stopping you from compiling your own code and side loading it onto your iOS device though, so as long as the source is available, you can compile it, you have xcode, and a mac, you can compile an emulator and put it on up to 10 (I think) devices you have registered with the developer program as dev machines.

 

The "nothing that executes arbitrary code" rule is the reason there is no XCode for iOS so there is no on-device development and therefore IMHO iOS devices are still just toys not serious computing devices.

 

This is Apple, doing everything it can to make sure that if you put unapproved code on your phone you know what you are doing, they don't want 'users' doing it.

[+DrVenkman]

If you want the lost treasures of infocom, frotz is available on iOS.

 

I know. I have it installed. But LOST TREASURES is a lot more than a Z-machine interpreter; it also includes 3D models of the software boxes, feelies in high-res models you can usually zoom, rotate and examine closely, clues, maps, etc. It's really a delightful package and it's a goddamn shame Activision can't be arsed to pay CodeMystics for a simple recompile for 64-bit iOS.

Edited March 3, 2019 by DrVenkman

[+slx]

Frotz gets around the restriction with it's FTP server mode where you can download/upload other Z-Files (at least as long as apple doesn't notice...). I too find it shameful that the Lost Treasures aren't updated (as is a lot of other software I bought in the earlier iOS days, I think the software required for the Atari Arcade hardware doesn't run on newer iOS version either).

[6BQ5]

Makes me wonder if its easier to get an emulator running on an Android tablet instead.

[Mr Robot]

frotz is an interpreter for z-machine files, it's not really an emulator and it doesn't execute user supplied code, so it's seen by apple as more of a file viewer for odd file formats.

 

If you have a mac I'd highly recommend spatterlight it will play all the old IF formats and all the new ones too. Scott Adams, Level 9, Magnetic Scrolls etc. etc.

 

I bought lots of IF on the Atari 800XL, and I bought lost treasures for the amiga and the pc. There is only so many times I am willing to buy the same game again in new packaging. No matter how nice that packaging may be.